There is a great deal of discussion about the best ways to reduce mass incarceration. One topic that has received significant attention is the need to revisit parole for people who have been incarcerated for a long time. Some argue on moral grounds, that there should always be hope, and
Read moreBlack Men and the Politics of Redemption
This is a long review of a book I highly recommend, Nikki Jones‘s The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption University of California Press (2018) so let me begin by highlighting the material that struck me most vividly. This is the first piece I have read that
Read moreBlack Strike at UW Madison 1969
In February of 1969, Black students and their White allies at the University of Wisconsin Madison called a strike and blocked entrances to campus buildings to back up their demands. I agreed to be part of a panel June 16 on the Black Student Strike of 1969 at UW Madison.
Read moreAmerican Routes: Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race
Angel Adams Parham’s book American Routes: Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race (Oxford, 2017, available in hardcover and as an ebook from many vendors) is an exciting work that makes a novel and important contribution to our understanding of race in the US. The “racial palimpsest” idea is that
Read moreThe Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Brooklyn College’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science Jeanne Theoharis is a readable and fascinating account of the life of Rosa Parks that won many awards when it was punished in 2013. Here’s my “take” on the story, based on the book. I
Read moreWhen Republicans Opposed the Free Speech of David Duke
In 1996, the College Republicans thought it was an unfair attack on their opposition to affirmative action to associate it with a known White racist.
Read moreNew working paper on White and Black urban and rural imprisonment rates
I’ve just posted my working paper to SocArXiv that shows that high White rural imprisonment rates and rises in imprisonment rates in county groups are linked to poverty and low education in rural areas. The paper gathers up the graphs and analysis from my previous post and also provides regression
Read moreDrug Homicide Prosecutions Make Overdose Problems Worse
Wisconsin leads the nation in filing homicide charges when someone dies from an overdose of an illegal drug, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, whose researchers found 882 news mentions of drug homicide prosecutions in Wisconsin 2011-16. (Second highest was Ohio with 577; Illinois had 486 and Minnesota 433.) Although
Read moreRacial Disparities in Plea Bargaining in Dane County 2000-2006
A forthcoming research article, (and now published) by Carlos Berdejó a professor of Law at Loyola of Los Angeles who also has a PhD in economics, has documented racial disparities in the plea bargaining process in Dane County, Wisconsin (home of the University of Wisconsin – Madison) in the years 2000-2006.
Read moreFor Closing the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility
Activists in Wisconsin’s Close MSDF coalition are focusing attention on the inhumane conditions in the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF) and the problem of crimeless revocations that send people there. The MSDF was built in 2001 to house people temporarily who had been accused of violating the terms of their
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